Baking with whole wheat can be a little tricky especially if you're trying to substitute whole wheat flour for ALL of the all-purpose flour in a recipe. Check out our test kitchen tips for baking with whole wheat.
Q: I'm substituting whole wheat flour for white flour in an attempt to cut down on white flour in baked goods. My recipe for oatmeal cookies is coming out dry!!! Any suggestions for adding something to a standard oatmeal cookie dough recipe that might help with this problem? Any tips for cutting down on the "wheaty" taste?
We’ve found that a combination of whole wheat and all-purpose flour works best in most baking recipes. If you substitute whole wheat for all of the AP flour, you will need to tweak the fat and liquid ingredients to achieve the desired texture in whatever you are baking. May we also recommend whole wheat pastry flour instead of stone-ground whole wheat flour. Flours differ in the amount of protein and gluten-forming proteins which alters the way liquids are absorbed. For this reason, we like to start with a combination of whole wheat and AP flour in order to minimize the amount of tweaks or changes we need to make to the recipe. This will also minimize any “wheaty” flavors as well.
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